


Sweet Release

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: BAMF Castiel, Benny Lafitte & Dean Winchester Friendship, Bottom Dean, Dark Benny, Demisexual Castiel, Destiel - Freeform, Dubious Consent, Episode: s08e07 A Little Slice of Kevin, Guilty Castiel, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One True Pairing, Post-Purgatory, Purgatory, True Love, Voyeur Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:59:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5897416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fell into a familiar routine of blood and gore and fighting,  matched with the sweet release in the night. </p><p>Until they found Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Purgatory

He still couldn't talk about how Cas left him.

Whirling into the void towards purgatory, it was the only thing that kept Dean hopeful: that Cas was beside him. 

Until suddenly he wasn't. 

Dean was hard, and hurt.  It made him stronger for this realm,  a stoic killing machine,  cold and dead inside. 

And when he met Benny he didn't want to think twice,  but he helped him and he needed a partner in this world and it was only common sense and practicality,  only maybe a little bit wasn't. 

 Suddenly Dean had a purpose: to climb through the door and return to the world above.  Suddenly he was smiling,  cheerful as he bickered and teased and fought beside Benny.

He didn't know you could find a strange sense of peace in purgatory. 

But it was strange;  unsettled.  Their arguments turned real when Dean insisted they find Cas first.  Benny glowered when he finally learned of how Dean and Cas had separated. And Dean didn't pull back when Benny reached for him in the night. 

He didn't know you could experience orgasms in purgatory. 

And he did feel happy, after an exhausting day on the trail,  blood soaked clothes torn off and rough male flesh closing in on him, he felt something released that had been buried for far too long. 

 They fell into a sweet routine of blood and gore and fighting,  matched with the sweet release in the night. 

Until they found Cas.

 *

He was squatting at a river, washing his face.  Dean left Benny's side and ran to him,  pulling him into a hug. 

It was not returned;  colder,  and stiffer than Benny's embraces. 

"You shouldn't have come," Cas said,  and it broke Dean's heart until a minute later and Cas explained: it was for Dean's safety. 

Because isn't that how it always was,  Cas sacrificing,  Cas taking stupid chances in his headstrong desire to only help. 

Cas was convinced to come along, but he resisted the whole way.  He said he didn't deserve it,  that he needed to stay,  and Dean told him to shut up and kept walking.

In the night,  when they had stopped,  Dean leaned in to Cas and whispered: "you know I forgive you,  right?"

Cas turned to look at him,  those sad, weary eyes,  and just said "you shouldn't."

Benny,  sitting across from them, glared deeper.

That night he took Dean rougher; working him hard until Dean could only groan and curse and cry out with intense pleasure.  Cas lay in the dark,  just out of view,  and listened to the moans of pleasure. 

In the morning,  Dean tried to watch Cas' face,  get some sense of a reaction;  but there was none.  Benny looked pleased,  and gave Dean a peck on the cheek. 

Cas looked away. 

 But there were other times,  when he and Benny were talking, leaning their heads in close with a certain familiarity,  when Dean would catch Cas watching them,  with a strange,  curious expression. 

He wondered what the angel was thinking. He wondered why he cared so much,  when he and Cas only seemed to fight and argue.  When he and Benny got along so well,  and made such a good team. 

Why,  then,  did he sometimes imagine it was Cas inside him? 

 *

They found the door and Dean was brilliant: everything would somehow sort itself out up top.  Things would suddenly make sense.  And he pulled Benny's soul into him and felt the familiar warmth pervade his body. 

He looked to Cas and wondered how he could have both. 

And he climbed to the door and reached back for Cas:

Cas, dirty and torn,  and watching him quietly,  sensing Benny's spirit in him,  even now.

He had been claimed. 

And afterwards,  Dean could never spin it right in his mind,  couldn't say for sure why Cas let go.  

But he pulled Benny out and ever since, he couldn't drop the thought,  that he had chosen to save Benny instead of Cas.


	2. Post Purgatory

Benny was gone and Sam stopped asking and Dean fell back into his routine during the day.

And at night he dreamed of Cas.

Cas, in the shadows, watching Dean and Benny.

Cas, walking alongside them, ignoring the soft teases and words the other two shared.

And Cas, in those small moments when he thought Dean wasn't looking, and he looked at them like there was an aching deep in his heart that nothing would ever fix.

Dean dreamed of what he could have done differently.

_Gone to Cas in the night_  
_\- Benny would be livid -_  
_Told him how he felt._

In his dreams, he'd had to turn on Benny to get to Cas. After all they had been through, and yet it was still not enough to break his feelings for Cas, and in his dreams he'd slaughter Benny a thousand times in order to just reach Cas.

In his dreams, it is him and Cas moving in the dark, instead of him and Benny.

He feels like a dick.

Benny calls him occasionally and comes down for a 'reunion', as they call it.

They meet in the woods and Benny pushes him against trees and presses him against the rocky floor and they move and moan in silence but there is no Cas watching.

Afterwards, Benny gets up to leave, and finally Dean asks:

"Benny. Are we together?"

Benny freezes, in the middle of pulling his clothes on. "Well, I'd say right now we surely are."

"You know what I mean."

Benny snickered softly and zipped up his pants. "Are you asking if we're dating?" he asked, almost derisively.

Dean sat up, crossed his arms. He refused to be made fun of. "I'm asking if we're together. I'm asking if this is -" his voice caught.

Benny didn't say anything for a while. He pulled on his jacket and found his hat and finally sat down next to Dean. "Well sure,  we're good friends," he said. "After all we've been through."

"But what is this? Just friends finding release? Or -" again, he couldn't finish.

Benny reddened. "Are you asking if this is love?" He stood up. "Oh, Dean, I don't do that shit no more. You're a good friend. A _great_ fuck. But this is not romance."

"What was all that in Purgatory, then?" Dean asked, almost teary. "You acted so possessive of me, to Cas."

Benny shrugged. "That little asshole just pissed me off," he said. "Plus, I kind of helped you out. We made him jealous."

"Cas isn't even interested in things like that."

Benny nodded, shrugged at the same time. "Sex, maybe not. But anyone with half a brain could see how he feels about you."

"Felt." Dean said morosely. Benny sighed and left.

It was on his way back, that Dean swerved the car and almost crashed because he saw Cas walking alongside the forest road. He pulled over and looked back but the way was empty. He climbed out and grabbed a flashlight and ran through the woods, looking for Cas, calling his name wildly.

He didn't find him. But that night, his dreams were vivid again, flashes of Cas sitting again, in the forest, as if that was where he always belonged, in the shadows, watching Dean.

And the next morning, Cas collapsed in the bathroom while Dean was brushing his teeth, and Dean grabbed him and held him close and tried to hold back the tears that came rushing out.

"Cas, you stupid shit," he whispered, propping Cas up against the wall. Cas still looked just as rough as he did in Purgatory. Dean took a washcloth and gently dabbed his face, poured water into his open mouth and then, couldn't help it, but leaned down and kissed him sweetly.

Cas' eyes fluttered open at that. He looked up at Dean, confused, blinking hard. "Dean," he said, his voice even gruffer than usual. "I finally found you."

Afterwards, Dean wondered how much Sam knew: as soon as he brought Cas into the room and laid him on the bed, Sam was up, asking questions, helping out; and then, just as suddenly, he thought of an errand to run and was gone. Dean sat over Cas, who kept insisting he was fine and wanted to get up, giving him water and trying to get him to talk.

"Cas," Dean said, holding his hand and tearing up. Cas just looked at him silently, ever-watching, not-acting. "I tried, Cas. I tried everything to get you out."

"I know," Cas said. "Have you been blaming youself?"

"What happened back there?"

"I didn't want to come out," Cas admitted. "I had already told you so much. But you threatened to stay if I wouldn't come. I had to pretend I was coming. You had to get out."

Dean shook his head, "No."

"You didn't deserve to be in there. I did."

Dean looked at Cas and if he had ever thought no one felt the same sense of self-hatred as him, he was wrong. Cas flinched, looked away. "I still do. And I don't know how I'm out."

"I'm glad you're out," Dean said. "I was about to go back in for you."

"Why," Cas said. "Why would you do that?"

Dean sat still. "You know."

But then Sam came in and Kevin had been kidnapped by Crowley and they were one again pulled away and it was strange that Dean missed one thing from Purgatory - time. 

There had always been too much time.  And he still never got to tell Cas-

He figured he never would. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm stuck


	3. If He Could Go Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We had good times in Purgatory," Benny said with a hint of sentiment in his voice. He chuckled. "Isn't that a strange thing to say?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reference to events in the latter part of "A Little Slice of Kevin".

Cas was weak and Cas was fighting.

And Cas would never save himself.

On the way through the abandoned factory, searching for Kevin, Dean saw Cas falter: he wasn't okay, and he shouldn't be here.

Cas insisted on pushing through, to Kevin. Dean wondered if anyone had ever tried to save Cas the way he tried to save everyone else. Dean and Sam had each other. But how many times had they let Cas go?

It was with a heavy heart that Dean stood by Cas now: those words always on the tip of his tongue, but never spilling out: begging for forgiveness, declaring his love, acting on his desires and moving onto Cas the way he did in his dreams.

And then Cas disappeared into the room, facing Crowley on his own, in his weakened state, and Dean's hand shook as he tried to pick the lock, desperate and aching to be there with Cas,

like he was never there for him.

When he burst into the room, Kevin was okay, Cas had saved half of the tablet, and Cas was on the floor, broken.

"He'll be okay," Sam said later, after the Trans had gone to hide out with Garth, after the brothers had carried Cas from the car to the motel and laid him on the bed. "He's an angel now. Somehow. He's always okay."

Dean watched Cas, bits and pieces of their history idling through his mind. Cas always made it out, this was true. But how often was Cas really okay?

Cas was hurting, Cas was hurt, and even now Cas was punishing himself for the missteps he had taken in his attempt to save Heaven.

Over the next few days, Sam was restless: he went out, he found nearby cases he could take for the day, and Dean stayed beside Cas.

Cas didn't say much. His eyes flickered up to Dean and he asked "Why are you still here?"

And Dean just responded: "Because you need me."

Cas looked like he was going to argue, that he didn't technically need Dean; but then he thought about it and stopped.

*

Benny texted.  

Dean replied:  _Sorry, busy._

He thought it would be over until the next day, when Benny was a little more persistent:

_I need to see you._

_\- I'm taking care of a friend.  I can't._

_Are you throwing a bitch fit because of last time?_

_\- I'm not.  I'm just busy._

_You owe me.  You'll come._

Dean shook it aside and focused on Cas.  He had been trying to educate him on pop culture, and was telling him the plots of movies like bedtime stories, showing him funny things on the internet, and watching TV.  Cas watched him with a bemused expression, but seemed to enjoy it. He spoke in a low voice and asked Dean about his life and they laughed and for once in their time together, things seemed  _easy._ Like they always should have been.

"I'm sorry, you know," Dean said one night, leaning over to Cas and putting his hand on his leg.  Cas was sitting propped up now, looking better. He cocked his head at Dean and waited for a follow-up.  "I'm sorry about purgatory."

"I told you, I chose to stay," Cas sighed, and looked back at Dean's phone.  He was googling squirrels for some reason. 

"No, not about that," Dean said.  "About Benny."

Cas bit his lip. "I know I may have judged him harshly," he admitted. "Because he's a vampire.  But he did save me. And if he makes you happy, that's all that matters."

Dean reddened at that. "No.  That's why I'm sorry." 

"He didn't make you happy?" Cas was confused.

Dean stood up and walked away. He was hoping this conversation would be easier to have if he wasn't looking at Cas.  "I was weak," he said. "After you left in purgatory - and I know why, and I understand - but I was weak, and I was lonely. And Benny was there, and he was a good guy -"

"You don't have to explain anything.  It's fine."  Cas said.

"It's not fine," Dean sputtered. Cas waited, not knowing what to say.  Dean's phone went off again.  Dean lunged over Cas and grabbed it. Cas gave it up easily and looked slightly scared.

_This is a call for help, brother. We had a deal._

Jesus Christ.  Benny was inexorable.  

"I regret it," Dean said sadly, watching his phone.  Cas didn't know if he was speaking to him or the phone. "I regret what happened in Purgatory.  I regret what happened with you."

"What happened with me?" Cas scrunched up his nose. "I mean, besides staying there.  Which we've already covered."

"I chose Benny over you," Dean whispered. 

Cas was quiet. 

The phone dinged. 

_Meet me in Pellet Woods in one hour.  Or I can come to you.  I could use a reunion with your angel, too._

Dean's blood went cold.  

"I've got to go," he said.  Cas shifted slightly; Dean hadn't left him in a week, aside from running errands.  "I've got to..." Dean looked for an excuse, failed, and then grabbed his keys and went to the door. 

He was halfway out when he looked back in at Cas.  "I regret it," he said, before he could stop himself. "Because I'm in love with you." 

Cas didn't even have time to react before Dean closed the door and left for the woods.  For Benny.

*

Benny was leaning against a car in the trail head parking lot.  Dean pulled up, watching him carefully. Something about Benny's smile tonight made him uneasy. 

"What is it," he said gruffly as he pulled himself out of the car.

"Come on," Benny stood up, nodded towards the woods.

Dean held still. "I'm not going into the woods with you," he said stiffly.

"I need," Benny said, an edge in his voice. "To talk to you. Come. into. the woods."

There was something menacing about the vampire, that Dean had never realized before. For some reason, his body obeyed, feet crossing the gap to meet Benny and walking alongside him into the darkness.  

In Purgatory, he had found a certain comfort in Benny. They were in the mires together, and he was the only one he could trust.  Even after they had found Cas - Cas who was quiet and lost and reluctant - they had been a team. Together. 

Dean didn't know why he felt so cold now, then. Afraid. In Purgatory, Benny had been the good guy.  But here, after all of Dean's help, he felt the sickening feeling that he had chosen the wrong side.  He didn't know what Benny was capable of.

Or, even worse: he did. 

Benny stopped at a small copse in the trees; a flat dusty stretch that overlooked the curling river below them.  He turned to Dean and stepped closer.

Dean stepped back. "What do you want, Benny?"

Benny kept coming, until Dean was backed up against a tree.  Dean sighed. Just the way Benny liked it. 

"We had good times in Purgatory," Benny said with a hint of sentiment in his voice.  He chuckled.  "Isn't that a strange thing to say?"

"We did," Dean leveled with him. 

Benny was still staring at him in a predatory way.  Dean swallowed hard.  "I know your angel is back."

"So?"

"So," Benny glowered. "Is that why you're ignoring my texts?"

"I've been busy," Dean snapped. "I don't have to drop everything for you."

"Except you do," Benny said, leaning into Dean, pressing into his belly.  Dean looked down, suddenly submissive.  "You drop everything for me because that's what we do.  We're brothers. You don't turn your back on that." 

Dean swallowed hard, looking past Benny.  "Last time you said it wasn't anything serious."

"No. But it's something.  You don't get to just throw that away." Benny's voice was suddenly sharp.  He ground his hips into Dean and Dean gasped, feeling the friction between his jeans.  He hated to admit it, but being here, pressed against a tree by Benny, he was already hard. Benny was too, and he rubbed against Dean with a lascivious smile.  Dean pressed his head back and gulped. 

"You belong to me," Benny said with a matter-of-fact tone, leaned forward, and kissed Dean, hard.  Dean tried to meet it, but was cowed; he pulled his head back as far as he could go, and still Benny came, his touch rough and bruising.  He moved his hands down Dean's shirt, teased at the skin at the edge of his jeans, and Dean reeled, dizzy with desire and repulsion at the same time.  Benny's fingers darted around to his buckle, unclasping and unzipping and Dean was weak in the knees, suddenly knowing that he would take it, all of it, when Benny wanted. 

"On your knees," Benny said, suddenly, taking a strong grip of Dean's hair and throwing him down to the dirt ground.  Dean fell, obediently, and Benny behind him pulled his jeans roughly down, completely off one leg.  

This was not how they did it in Purgatory: facing each other, both slick with desire. This was different. 

This was punishment. 

Dean on his hands and knees, as Benny settled in behind him.  Bracing himself, scared and in flames. Benny pulled Dean's hip's back, pressed his dick against Dean's hole, and paused: snickered.

Dean, panting, waiting, wanting and not wanting in the same sick breath, gasped. Cried out. 

"Tell me you want it," Benny said.  

Dean didn't respond. 

"You know you do."

And then, Dean's voice, small and ashamed, almost came. 

Because he was hungry and desperate and Cas would never love him, not like this, and he was weak and he was stupid but he needed this.  

So where did he find the strength to choke out: "No, Benny."

It was the wrong answer, he knew immediately.  In part because it wasn't completely true, and in part because it only served to anger Benny.  Benny grabbed his hair again and yanked his head back; at the same time he forced Dean's hips back and plowed deep inside of him, with no warning. 

Dean howled, the noise choked and strangled in his position, and Benny laughed as he pulled out and pounded back in. 

He finally let go of Dean's hair and Dean let his head fall, choking and crying.  They had been together, but it had never been like this.  Never the pain and the force that felt like he was being ripped into two.

As Benny found a rhythm, rough and hard and fast and punishing, Dean closed his eyes and tried to imagine Cas, lurking in the shadows around them.

Cas, watching them quietly, watching Dean in the daylight as if searching for meaning, searching for something.  Meek and sad and self-loathing, Cas wanting the best for Dean -  _whatever makes you happy_. 

But what did Cas want?

Cas laughing in the hotel room, those soft moments with Dean as they talked or watched TVs together, the way Cas tilted his head towards Dean, the day Dean had gotten the nerve to climb onto the bed on top of the sheets but next to Cas, so they could watch the National Geographic special on wolverines together, sharing the small phone screen, their arms touching. 

The sweet little moments when their skin touched; all he would ever have of Cas.

He thought of all of these things as Benny fucked him, hard. 

And then Cas was squatting beside him, his face inches from Dean's.  Dean blinked. He was imagining things. 

"Do you want this?" Cas asked.  Dean couldn't answer, just watched Cas with tears burning his eyes.   Cas, frustrated, tried again.  He motioned at Benny, behind Dean. "Do you want this to happen?"

Dean shook his head, tears finally spilling over.  "No," he said hollowly, and Cas looked up at Benny, snapped his fingers, and -

there was a sick, slick noise: blood and chunks of flesh splattering down on them.

Dean reeled forward, fell into Cas' arms.  Cas caught him, falling down on his ass, and held Dean closely, protectively. 

Dean tried to look around but Cas stopped him. "Let's go back," he said, raising his fingers to Dean's head to take them back to the motel room.

"No -" Dean pushed them aside and pressed into Cas. "No." He wanted to be here, in the sad forest stand-in for Purgatory. 

He wanted to go back and change everything that had happened.

"Cas -" Dean was desperately groping at Cas, his hands pulling at the collar of the trenchcoat.  "Cas."  He said again sadly. "I love you," he breathed, and they were in the darkness in the forest and Dean was on top of Cas, and he said the words.

"I know," Cas said softly.  Dean bristled. 

"Do you?.. I mean, do you... care about me?"

Cas smiled then, reached up and pushed Dean's hair back affectionately.  "What are you talking about?" he said, amused.  "Of course I do.  Everything I do is for you, Dean. Didn't you know that?" 

 Dean's breath stuck in his throat; he stared into Cas' eyes, deep and sad and yearning, and Dean's entire body was electric, fizzing with an inpalpable desire: not for sex, but for something more.

Cas -  _Cas_ \- was the one who leaned forward and gently kissed Dean on the lips: open and sweet and Dean finally came to and kissed him back, hard but with restraint, because the way he wanted to pull himself into Cas' clothes, into Cas' skin, was slightly scary. 

Cas pulled away.  "Can I clean us up?" he asked, teasingly. "Maybe go back to the hotel?  Y'know...  _not_ do this bathed in vampire blood?"

Dean grinned. "Clean us up," he said, adjusting himself so he was sitting beside Cas now, holding his hand so tightly he thought it might bruise. "Get him out of here. But right now, I do want to stay here, in the forest, in the night, with you."

Cas grinned and snapped his fingers and Dean felt whole again; warm and dry and clothed. Even his ass felt better, he thought with gritted teeth.  He laid back on the ground and Cas laid beside him, and they watched the stars twinkle in the sky above. 

"You... do know what love means? Between humans?... how they express it?"  Dean asked, his throat still thick with desire.

"I do," Cas considered. "But it seems like it doesn't mean that much. People _not_ in love do it." He made a special effort not to reference Benny. 

Dean sighed heavily.  If only Cas had been the one inside of him all that time.  "I just want to be close to you," he admitted. "Sex isn't enough. But it's all we have." 

Cas raised their hands up, and kissed Dean's knuckles. "There's something more we could do," he said slowly. 

Dean looked at him, propped himself up on one elbow.  "What are you talking about?"

Cas grinned, not sitting up, but staying on the ground, admiring Dean from below.  "We'll have plenty of time for that," he said. "And your way." He wrapped his arms around Dean's torso and pulled him closer.  Dean settled on top of Cas, tangling his fingers in his hair. 

"Will we?" Dean asked.  "Promise?"

Cas arched up and caught Dean's lips, hungrier now, closing his eyes with bliss as he kissed him. 

Dean watched him, and matched the kiss with increasing fervor. 

Because it would never get old: Cas wanting.  Cas moving towards him. Cas wanting -  _him._

They lay in the darkness, wrapped in each other, and kissed sweetly, needing more, but waiting.  Because they had time. 


End file.
